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Salam remembered

Abdus Salam is dead. A titan has fallen. As part of His grand design,
the Creator sometimes produces a giant like Abdus Salam in a nation which
has otherwise produced and patronised pygmies.

Salam's high intellect and vision to transform Pakistan into a nation
at the forefront of science and technology had little relevance to a country
which has always been eager to plunge backwards. In the late thirties
and early forties, some of the greatest scientists in Europe faced Nazi
persecution and were forced to emigrate to the US where they revolutionised
American science.

In the early stages of his career, finding the Pakistani soil hostile,
Salam left Pakistan to enrich European science. For about three decades
he worked in the UK and Italy. All these years he was adored by Italians
whose language he did not speak or understand, revered by Britishers whose
culture he hardly liked and despised by his own countrymen whose affection
he always sought.

In a country where there were hardly any scientists or technologists
who had the intellect, imagination or will to think or act in a big way,
Salam had little say in the affairs of science and technology in Pakistan.
He made passionate appeal to his countrymen when at Faiz Memorial Lecture
at Lahore he said:

"If you consider me a non-Muslim....that is your problem. Treat me as
a non-Muslim mason if you like, but do let me lay a few bricks for the
mosque you want to build."

Nobody really cared for him or his words. About the loss of great people,
Shakespeare said "the Heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
The skies may by in mourning over Salam's death but there is hardly any
gloom or grief seen in the land in which he was born and now lies buried.
Those who mattered most were too busy in the mundane duties of the State
to find time to receive his body at the Lahore Airport or place any floral
wreaths on his grave.

Our nation stands diminished by its treatment of Salam. Who knows how
many centuries we may have to wait before we produce another Salam. Societies
and civilisations which do not respect their scholars and thinkers are
destined to vanish.